


Two Shoes

by flashindie



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, only briefly though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:33:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24735469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: “You’re the one who wanted the second set of eyes for this,” she tells him curtly, louder, and Rio’s languid look quickly morphs into a disbelieving glare. He rocks his jaw, grip tightening on her hip.“You wanna keep it quiet?”“You wanna ever talk to me about a job before I’m apparently halfway through it?”-Beth and Rio do a job - - badly.A post-s3 mess.
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Comments: 41
Kudos: 436





	Two Shoes

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompts:
> 
> 1 and 25 for the kiss prompt: 'shove me against a wall' kiss + 'i'm running out of breath' kiss. 
> 
> 2\. inyoursheets: “1 or 5 for the kiss prompts? 1. 'shove me against a wall' kiss or 5. sloppy kiss” 
> 
> 3\. medievalraven “For the three word starters: just come here and/or just trust me - thanks!!” 
> 
> 4\. Anon: “just come here” and “hold onto me” ☺️☺️ 
> 
> 5\. Anon: “S3 prompt? They all have to go somewhere fancy for work and Rio asks Beth to wear something sexy. He asks her in a mean and condescending way. Beth decides she will and shows up booking like a sexy stunner.”

She’s still trying to get the attention of the bartender over the soaring sound of the string quartet and the blink of all the other women’s jewellery (which, god, must be worth more than her house and her car  _ combined _ ), when she’s jostled forwards, her chest slamming into the bar in a way that briefly winds her.

It takes her a minute, two, to catch her breath, but by the time she does, the woman who’d pushed her has made a neat path of sliding ahead of Beth in the queue for drinks. She waves a hand up, her gold, sequined dress catching the light, her plunging neckline - - well. Catching something else.

“Excuse me,” Beth says, trying to get the other woman’s attention, her gaze flicking sideways as the bartender beelines for the interloper, and the woman only briefly turns back to look at Beth, her gaze skimming Beth’s face, and then lower – noting her little gold necklace, her clearly off-the-rack, black-with-white-polka-dots dress, her sensible heels, before immediately turning away again, and - - right, Beth thinks with a huff.

This is  _ really _ not her crowd.

Not that she was expecting it to be exactly – Rio hadn’t even bothered to tell her why they were here. Had just texted her the address of the hotel last night with a time and a strict instruction to  _ dress a little more Dynasty, a little less Full House,  _ and honestly, the guy really needed to update his pop culture references.

Although, both of those shows  _ have  _ had reboots recently, she thinks, squinting, vaguely remembering Annie talking her ear off about people getting entirely new faces and bouncing back from the dead, and then she wrinkles her nose a little, because god, isn’t that her life at this point?

Still, she’d gotten here. The hotel some lush, inner city thing with arched windows, and a suited valet, marble floors that sprawl from foyer to a large, sweeping ballroom, and Beth had been prepared to wait outside on her own when a man had flashed her a small bird tattoo on his hand and taken her in instead. He hadn’t stuck around though, only deposited her at the bar and then promptly disappeared into the fray of rich, middle-aged men with women who were clearly not their wives, and, well. At least she’d have a story for Ruby and Annie, she thinks, watching as a man who could be Dean in ten years (or rather,  _ could  _ be if Dean maybe traded in small islands instead of hot tubs) drops a hand to his dance partner’s ass and squeezes  _ hard _ .

Rolling her eyes, Beth turns her attention back to the bar just as a glass of no doubt ridiculously expensive champagne is set down in front of the woman beside her. Beth smiles at her, because hey, at least she brought the bartender’s attention to their side of the thing, gesturing to him to order her own drink, when he promptly heads in the opposite direction – straight to a doe-eyed blonde who looks all of nineteen.

Beth drops heavily into her heels, watching with a small flicker of jealousy as the interloper beside her takes a delicate, feminine sip on her glass while  _ refusing  _ to get out of the way, which is frankly rude, because Beth was here  _ first _ , at this stupid, ridiculous venue with - -

A hand glides across the small of her back, and the next thing Beth knows, the woman in the gold dress is gone, and Rio has slid easily into her place.

“Yo,” he hums, his voice a honeyed purr across the bustle of the clinking crowd, and Beth shivers, only to instantly jut out her jaw in irritation because seriously? Shivering? She shifts her weight sideways, easing her hip into the bar and takes him in.

And, sure.

He looks good.

But that much isn’t a surprise. Dressed in slacks that actually fit him for a change, a buttoned up black shirt beneath a sleek black blazer, his tattoo just poking out beneath the collar. Even beyond that, he looks rested for a change, his eyes a little brighter, his skin a little warmer, his whole face just –

“You get a drink yet?”

Beth blinks, pulled back to the moment, her eyes darting up to where Rio’s half slung over the bar. An audience of women (and more than a few men) eyeing him down across the fray.

All it takes is a flick of his hand and the bartender materialises in front of them, suddenly eager, and Beth squints at him, unimpressed, as Rio orders her a bourbon and himself a gin. The urge to tell him exactly how long she’s been waiting for a drink burns on the tip of her tongue, but more than anything, that just sounds like an invitation for a conversation (well, more a  _ mocking _ ) she has no interest in having.

She bites the inside of her cheek, watching as Rio tosses a couple of (big) notes down onto the bar, nodding at the bartender and turning just enough to slide the bourbon towards her. As for his own glass – he tilts it sideways, watching the clear liquor climb the sides before holding it up to his nose, sniffing it, then taking a slow drink. He holds it in his mouth, moves it, the motion emphasising his cheekbones, the plumpness of his lower lip, and something in Beth warms.

Glancing back towards the bar, Beth grabs the glass Rio slid her way, takes a sip, before she turns on him.

“You know you can’t just send me an address and expect me to show up every time, right?”

The words are enough to make Rio look back at her, his eyebrows raised innocently, as he says:

“No?”

“ _ No _ ,” she insists, palm growing clammy around her glass, and Rio nods, makes a show of turning so that he’s facing her, his elbow still perched on the bar.

“Thought you’d do anything?”

His gaze flits then, dropping easily down her body, taking in the dress, and it’s almost too sudden – the memory of the last time she wore it for him, those words on her tongue, the promise only half-meant, back when she still thought she could kill him, back when she thought any of this would ever be over (when she thought she  _ wanted _ it to be). She swallows thickly, and Rio seems to clock it, because he does that sort of half-laugh that he does – the one that sits somewhere between amusement and vindication, and it’s enough to make her look away, back out across the ballroom where the couples dance, irritation knocking at the backs of her teeth.

They’re an odd bunch really. A gaggle of greying guys in expensive suits, fitted, but dated in their cut and hang, a smattering of women who approach an age appropriateness, while the rest could be easily mistaken for daughters or even granddaughters, lingering near the bar, ordering drinks Beth’s never heard of.

Still, a few really do dance. Mostly the couples that look a little more lived in – the ones with matching streaks of silver in their hair, crow’s feet beside their eyes, wear and tear, but some of the more spring-and-fall ones too. A woman about Annie’s age flashes too-white veneers as she smiles while her dance partner sucks on his dentures, pushing a red nose into her long, tanned neck.

It’s enough to make Beth snort, the image of Dean springing too easily to mind again, but it’s chased by a shard of something sharp because god, when was the last time she’d danced with Dean? When was the last time he’d thought to ask her? Would he have asked Gayle at the Crystal Whale Awards Night? Did he take her to a room upstairs afterwards? Fuck her in somebody else’s bed? Or did he let her take him home to hers? The thought sours in her head, and she turns back to Rio, only to be met with him suddenly jerking his own head away and - -

Had he been watching her?

Beth blinks in surprise, parts her lips as Rio throws back the last of his gin, pushing up off the bar, and taking a step forward. He jerks his head, gesturing them both out, which only makes Beth pause.

“C’mon,” he tells her, and Beth blinks again.

“Where are we going?”

Are they leaving? Why would he have her meet him here then? It’s not like he’s ever been averse to just finding her wherever she is and dragging her to where he wants her. She squints a little at him, ignoring the way a man tries to sidle up beside her, closer to the bar, trying to flag down the bartender and honestly, good luck with that.

Rio’s gaze flicks sideways towards the other guy, an unreadable expression crossing his face, before fixing back on Beth. His jaw rocks, and he looks  _ annoyed _ , which has to be about the most ridiculous thing imaginable, because  _ he’s  _ the one who’s being purposefully vague, and  _ he’s  _ the one who knows what they’re supposed to be doing here, and - - 

“Elizabeth,” he says, cutting through her stewing, and when she looks back at him, his expression has smoothed out again. He moves to hold a hand out towards her, gesturing for her to take it. “Just come here, yeah?”

And god, Beth can’t help it.

She  _ stares  _ at it. His offered hand like some sort of alien thing, and it’s weird, how her skin prickles at the memory of the way he’d grabbed her own beneath the table that one time, and - -

Was that the last time their hands touched?

No.

Stupid.

There were other times, at meets or back at Boland Motors.

(All those times in her bedroom).

But - -

It hadn’t been the first time either.

He’d held it when he’d taught her how to use a gun. His hands big, strong, guiding hers around the cool metal, his body warm, firm behind her, and - -

He catches her eye now, in the moment, arches an eyebrow at her like  _ you gonna do this or not  _ and Beth swallows thickly, bites the inside of her cheek, and finally deposits her glass back down at the bar. She pushes the memories down into whatever box they’d tumbled out of, and, before she can think another thing, she steps forward and she takes his offered hand.

*

It goes like it always does, or maybe it doesn’t.

Maybe it doesn’t, because maybe he jerks back a little, almost imperceptible. Maybe his mask slips, his confidence wavers. Maybe it happens the second their fingers touch.

The thing about him, the thing about his skin, is it’s smoother than it should be, his hands forever blood soaked, but uncalloused, the expanse of him unscarred, or - - well. Unscarred before  _ her _ . She knows because she’s seen every long, lean, tanned inch of him. Has  _ felt  _ him against her, beneath her, above her, and the thing is she touches him and they’re in her bedroom, and it’s  _ wrong _ , she knows it’s wrong, but then he looks at her, almost - -

Almost surprised, and it’s all she needs to know that he feels it too.

*

She quickly slides her hand away, or at least she tries to, but Rio’s grip suddenly shifts, moving to entwine their fingers in a way that feels like a vice grip, and he tugs her out, tugs her towards him, before he spins, dragging them out towards the ballroom floor.

Beth stumbles to catch up as the vibrato of the string quartet swells in her ears, watching the light shift behind his head, pour down his neck, the sleek black line of his dinner jacket like a knife through the colourful crowd, and then - -

Then he spins them.

The soles of her shoes squeak on the polished dancefloor, and Rio’s hand drops hers (and god – it’s so sudden – the coolness that hits with the loss of his touch), only to move to her hip instead, steadying her against the fringe of the crowd.

She blinks wildly up at him, briefly speechless, and Rio grins, dart quick, before dropping his other hand to her other hip, squeezing just enough that heat shoots through her body and she just keeps  _ blinking  _ at him, when he says:

“Hold onto me, yeah?”

With that, he pulls her closer, jerking her into him so hard, fast, that she stumbles, almost colliding with his chest before she re-steadies herself, only for him to step forwards to meet her, colliding into  _ her  _ instead. Their chests bump, and Beth flails, grabbing onto his shoulders out of a need for balance more than anything else, and before she can think anymore of it, he steps forwards again, making her step back.

He follows easily, his stride long and quick, crowding her and moving her at the same time. Beth’s heels clip beneath her as she tries to match his step, but before she can even work out what it is he’s doing, they’re deep into the crowd of dancing couples, a dreamy thrum of glinting jewels and practiced steps.

Apparently happy now with their position, Rio squeezes her hip again and lifts one of his hands to pull one of hers off his shoulder, his fingers engulfing hers as he gently twists her arm around, directing her to spin.

Beth stares at him but doesn’t move, her eyes level with the tilt of his chin, before she looks at their hands, feels the heft of him in front of her, the too-good natural smell of him. Something in her chest flutters like it wants to take flight, and god, if that doesn’t make her grit her teeth in annoyance.

_ Stupid _ , she thinks.

This is, she is, they are - -

_ Stupid _ .

“I’m sorry, did you order me here to  _ dance with you? _ ” she bites up at him, and Rio looks at her, eyes bright as he shrugs.

“Gotta case the place for a job,” he tells her, voice low and conspiring. “This way, I get a good look at it and no one’s gonna notice I’m lookin’.”

Beth opens her mouth in - - what? Surprise? Anger? General confusion? But nothing comes out, and Rio just grins, not entirely unkindly down at her.

“Now, c’mon, darlin’. Gimme a spin.”

Rolling her eyes, Beth does, letting the small mermaid tail of her dress catch the ballroom air. She’s only halfway through the spin when Rio stops her, pressing himself against her back and curling his arms around her waist. His breath is hot against the back of her ear, her neck, and Beth swallows thickly, feeling herself flush as she tries to keep a desperate hold on the escaping thread of her irritation.

“You pay attention too, yeah?” he mumbles, his voice deep and rough. “Second set of eyes and what not. Ain’t that what you wanted?”

Beth sucks in a breath, nodding just slightly, her eyes taking in the expanse of the ballroom. It’s hard to see over the mass of people enough as it is – hard to tell where the crowd ends, to see where the waitstaff materialise from, where they disappear to, to see the walls behind the bar – but god, it’s so much harder with him pressed against her back. She swallows again, feels his hand slide over her belly, his hips sway behind hers, and - -

Right.

She’d asked for this.

Asked for more work.

Or not - - not  _ more  _ work, but  _ different _ work. 

With Boland Bubbles up and running, and the money manufacturing at Paper Porcupine rolling out smoothly (and now that their money wasn’t disappearing into a hitman-sized sinkhole), everything had been better. Good! But also maybe - -

Maybe a little boring.

It didn’t help that Rio would pop up into the Paper Porcupine backroom or at the picnic table or in the Boland Bubbles office after hours (long after Dean had gone home) with bruises on his knuckles or a spring in his step, or an in-joke with Mick about some other job with some other operation, and - - well.

(“I mean, you’ve got to need another set of eyes occasionally,” she’d told him at his bar, perched against the wall, watching as Rio lent over the pool table. The words had been enough to make his gaze flick pointedly over to Mick, who’d only shot an exasperated look back at him. And fine, if he was going to be like that, she’d added: “Mick here’s probably dying for a holiday.”

Rio had hit a ball with the pool cue, sinking two other balls in one of the holes, before he’d straightened up, tilting his head back at her, a look on his face somewhere between amusement and boredom.

“What exactly are you offering, Elizabeth?”

Beth had just shrugged, fingering the rim of her bourbon glass.

“Help with, y’know,” she gestured between them, around to the bar itself. “Things that  _ aren’t  _ just spas and paper.”)

Now, Rio’s hand drifts a little higher up her belly, and they’re big enough that when he splays his fingers, his thumb just brushes the underside of her breast. Her breath hitches, and he makes a noise behind her, like he’d felt it, like he’d  _ liked  _ it, which makes her huff, cant her hips just slightly back, enough she can feel him against her ass, feel his own breath shorten. His hand drifts up quicker in reply, resting only his pinky and second finger on her ribs, the rest of them climbing the swell of her breast and - - 

“Focus on the exits,” he tells her, voice low at her ear, thumb still on her breast, and he’s swaying them in time to the music, somehow both solid behind her and something liquid, the rhythm of him like a song. “Anything that could turn into one too – windows, service chutes, all that. Anything that looks outta the ordinary too.”

Beth nods again, and Rio drops his hand back down to her hip, the other to her wrist and spins her back to face him, dropping her wrist over his shoulder in the process. She pushes the other up too, clutching at him, trying to ground herself, find herself, and god, she’s really not sure what’s worse. Having him pressed against her back or in front of her like this, having to look at the ridiculous  _ lines  _ of him.

His ridiculous - -

Her gaze darts across his eyes, lips, nose, cheekbones, and just - - 

_ Face _ .

She swallows, blinks a little too quickly, eyes dropping to his neck, to where the wings of the bird span out beneath the high collar of his shirt.

“Are you looking for them too?” she whispers, her voice breathier than she intends (it’s just the proximity, she promises herself, that’s all), and Rio shrugs, shifting her hands a little in the process.

“Yeah, you don’t gotta worry about that.”

Which - - okay.

Beth scowls, any heat quickly burning out, or not out. Into something else. She pinches her grip on his shoulders, tight enough he has to feel it, but he doesn’t react, which only sparks her annoyance even more.

“You’re the one who wanted the second set of eyes for this,” she tells him curtly, louder, and Rio’s languid look quickly morphs into a disbelieving glare. He rocks his jaw, grip tightening on her hip.

“You wanna keep it quiet?”

“You wanna  _ ever  _ talk to me about a job  _ before  _ I’m apparently halfway through it?”

She says it loud enough that a few of the dancing couples around them stare, and it probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but Beth sets her own jaw all the same when Rio’s nostrils flare.

“I’m lookin’ at people,” he replies, voice so low Beth can barely hear it, and she blinks up at him, jaw loosening, pleased. It must cross her features too, because Rio’s doing that thing where his eyelids get really low, and she’s pretty sure he’s resisting the urge to roll his eyes at her or ditch her, and he  _ can’t,  _ she realises smugly. She smooths her hands over his shoulders, reaching them to entwine behind him and cup the back of his neck, feeling the smoothness of his skin there, and the slight bristle of his hair.

“See? That wasn’t so hard.”

He really does glare then, tilting his chin as the music slows to a stop. Beth smiles sweetly, her gaze darting over to where the string quartet readjusts, the violinist whispering to the cellist, and she barely has time to take a breath before the music soars again, and Rio steps her back into a new dance.

And the thing is, she knows she’s not a bad dancer.

Remembers ballet classes as a girl and goofing around with Ruby after watching  _ Dirty Dancing  _ on repeat, and even the classes she and Dean took to prepare for their wedding. She knows she has rhythm, step and sway, but next to Rio she feels all knees, uncertain in all the ways he’s certain, the way he can practically glide her across the floor, and it surprises her enough that she can’t quite stop the question from crossing her lips.

“You do this often?” she asks, letting her tone goad to hide her genuine curiosity, and Rio looks down at her, his lips twisting in something approaching a grin. He smothers it quickly, his hands smoothing over her hips as he sways them in time with the music, steering them away from bumping into the other couples.

“You payin’ attention to those exits?”

Beth rolls her eyes, but it’s fair, she supposes, looking surreptitiously over his shoulder towards the back of the ballroom. Her gaze flits across the furthest wall, scanning across the wall art, the tables and chairs propped beneath, to a waiter who tilts a half-emptied silver tray of delicate canapes down at one of the couples sitting in one. Just past him though is a small open arch, leading onto what looks like a narrow corridor – whether for the waiters or as a fire escape, she can’t be sure. Still, Beth tilts her chin at it, and when Rio doesn’t acknowledge it, squeezes his shoulders instead.

“Two o’clock,” she says under her breath, and Rio looks down at her like he’s trying to swallow his grin. He furrows his brow, nods faux seriously, and Beth feels her cheeks flush, which is ridiculous, because god, she’s doing what he’s  _ asked her to _ . She’s about to say as much, when he steps her back suddenly and  _ dips  _ her.

The air is sucked from her lungs as her eyes fall on the illustrious arched ceiling of the place, a shiver running through her body as Rio bends forwards over her.

“You can draw me a map. I’m doin’ my own thing, remember?”

Which - -  _ fine _ , but also maybe he could’ve told her that a little earlier too.

She nods curtly, and Rio tugs her back up, his hand moving from her hip to her lower back, inching down just enough she can feel his pinky on the swell of her ass. Swallowing thickly, Beth stops herself from looking at him – opting to peer over his shoulder instead, her eyes darting across the far wall behind him again.

At least it’s a distraction, she thinks. Enough for her mind to latch onto, even as a heat builds hotter in her as his hand slips an inch down, the weight of it settling just above the swell of her ass. She blinks rapidly, feeling something in her  _ clench _ , and then Rio’s leaning closer again, his breath hot at her temple, just above her ear, and - - 

“There’s a guy at the bar. I’m gonna need you to distract him.”

Which - -

“What?”

Beth jerks her head slightly sideways, trying to temper her surprise as she tries to look at him, but Rio doesn’t let her, his hand tightening on her lower back – a silent instruction to stop.

“Yeah,” he hums, loosening his hand when she stops trying to crane her neck. He noses into her hair in something that feels like a reward, and the heat in her dives low. “Get him to buy you a drink or somethin’.”

Their feet are still moving across the floor, still trapped in the one-two-step of this dance, and Beth tries to focus on that as her mind tries to reel out of her control.

“I thought you wanted me mapping the exits?”

“Can’t do both?”

“I - - yes. Fine. But - - why him? And how will I know which man?”

“Keeps lookin’ at us. He’s in a blue suit,” he says, breathing out a laugh against her ear, warm enough to make her shiver. Rio sways them sideways in time to the music, barely a step, two, when he teasingly adds: “And two o’clock.”

Beth blinks, her gaze darting sideways to where a man in a fitted navy suit sits alone at the bar, his face carefully blank as he nurses a scotch, and Rio’s not wrong, she realises. He  _ is _ watching them. 

Fragments of a lie – of a different her – start to stitch together in her head, and as the music slows briefly to a stop, so do her feet. She makes a show of wobbling a little in her heels, feigning tipsy, pushing Rio’s hand off her lower back and spinning on the spot, nose in the air as she swings her hips and walks away from him, back across the ballroom floor.

She can feel the weight of both their gazes on her – Rio’s and this other man’s – and she waits until she gets close before she lets herself show that she’s noticed the second (she can - -  _ could  _ never acknowledge the first), slowing her step, and batting her lashes in faux flattery.

“Hi there, want some company?”

*

So she learns this:

His name is David and he’s a political advisor for a local independent politician, here to scope out some potential donors. He likes cheap scotch and her eyes – two things she finds out at the same time, when he leans in close to whisper the latter and she smells the former on his breath. She smiles wanly, leaning forwards, into it, trying not to think too much of it when he presses their arms together on the bar.

“You’re sweet,” she titters, her gaze darting sideways, then - - before she can help it - -  _ out _ .

It hadn’t taken Rio long to find a new dance partner, and she’d been less surprised than she should’ve been when it turns out to be the woman in the golden dress, who’d practically tripped over herself to get to him the second Beth had turned around. Rio hadn’t seemed particularly bothered by it then, falling into step with her, and he doesn’t now either, throwing his head back to laugh at something she says.

Something in Beth burns hot at the picture of it, and she has a drink, turning her attention back to David. She’s supposed to be distracting him, after all, while Rio looks at ‘people’, whatever that means, but - -

But he only seems to be looking at  _ one  _ person now. 

The woman in the gold dress titters, and Rio’s gaze drifts down the plunging neckline of her dress, and Beth shifts her weight, her own dress stifling her chest, feeling suddenly stiff and matronly when she had felt so  _ good  _ before, and she watches as Rio lowers his hands to the other woman’s hips. She watches him gently squeeze her there, and it’s sudden – the memory of those hands on her own hips – so real to her in the moment that she can feel the weight of them on her now, the warmth, and - - 

“Did you come here with that guy?”

Beth blinks, twisting back to look at David, who’s staring at her in question, his face warm, personable, open. So unlike Rio’s and - - she wets her lips, shakes her head. What is she  _ doing _ ? 

She thinks of how quickly he’d stopped dancing with her, how quickly he’d palmed her off, and god. How many times does Rio have to tell her this thing between them is just work before  _ she _ just works? Before she stops reading into his looks and his touches and his tones. She shakes her head, opens her mouth to say something, anything, to get her back to the job, but David cuts her off.

“You catch the eye together,” he adds with a shrug. “I was trying to work it out before. Trying to imagine - - I don’t know. How you knew each other, I guess.”

He swallows the last of his scotch, and right, Beth thinks. She finds her voice, shaking her head again and trying to load her tone with something light and flippant.

“Oh! No, we just met tonight,” she replies, waving a hand out. “He was a pretty good dancer, but a little  _ hands on _ , y’know?”

She wrinkles her nose, like it was the last thing she wanted, and David leans a little closer, the smell of scotch thick on his breath as he smiles like he doesn’t quite believe her. 

The music carries out across the ballroom, a couple laughs, somebody drops their drink, glass shattering across the floor. Someone yells at a waiter in response.

“He keeps looking over here,” David says, like he’s heard none of it. “And you keep looking over there.”

It’s enough to make her breath catch, and before she can help it, her gaze darts sideways, out across the dancefloor again, only this time Rio isn’t looking at the woman in his arms, he’s looking back at Beth. 

She can’t explain it, ever, how quickly the rest of the room falls away when their eyes meet, the line between them pulling achingly tight, and it’s not gold – not the colour of that woman’s dress (not the colour of his old gun), it’s something clear, bright, shining – chemical, or - - 

_ No _ , Beth thinks.

It’s something blood-stained and red. 

She tears her gaze away from his, polishing off the last of her drink before she turns back to David. 

Pressing her arm into his, she leans a little closer, dropping her glass to the polished surface of the bar between them. 

“I’m not looking at him now,” she says sweetly, a shiver running through her when she can  _ feel  _ Rio’s gaze – can feel him pull hard on that line between them. “How about another drink?”

*

She’d miss the bathroom entirely if it wasn’t for the line that snakes out the door, the glint of women’s jewellery like the sleek shine of scales. Beth watches briefly as the women wait, chatting softly, checking their phones, wobbling aching feet in pumps and she’s ready to go and stand behind them, but instead she thinks - - 

Lobby. 

There’s got to be a bathroom there, right? 

Sure, it’ll probably have a line too, but it’s got to be half the length of this one, and probably a little less booze-infused too, Beth thinks wryly, watching one woman squirm on the spot with the urge to pee. She adjusts her handbag strap on her shoulder and breaks out from the back of the line, her heels clipping down the sleek marble tiles as she heads out of the narrow corridor that runs parallel to the ballroom and towards the bright, open foyer of the hotel. 

She’s just about to cross over when a hand finds her arm and jerks her back. 

With a gasp, Beth stumbles back, but before she can properly turn, the hand pulls, tugging her back down the corridor – past the bathrooms, past the generic, abstract paintings that line the walls, past the first service entrance, and then another. Finally finding her wits enough to look ahead, Beth’s lips part, somehow both surprised and not to be met with the long, cutting line of Rio, his own lips pursed and his forehead furrowed. 

Blinking rapidly, Beth digs her heels into the ground, trying to slow them down, and yanking her arm out of his grip. 

Or, well, trying to at least. 

He tightens his hold, pulling them down a little further, far enough away that the chatter of the bathroom crowd is lost below the swell of the music and the clank of the kitchen staff, churning out the canapes. 

She digs her heels a little harder. 

“ _ Stop _ ,” she hisses, jerking her arm back, and finally he  _ does  _ stop, letting go of her and spinning around to face her, his expression as pinched as she imagines hers is. He rocks his jaw, and then he just - - 

_ Looks  _ at her. 

It’s enough to make something in her crackle. 

Before she can even begin to figure out what  _ that  _ means, Rio clasps his hands in front of himself and rolls his shoulders back. 

“We ain’t finished here,” he tells her then, voice sharp, and just - -  _ what _ ? 

Beth stares at him for a moment, mouth hanging open, before she gathers her wits and shakes her head. 

“I know that,” she says, then gestures quickly back to the bathroom. “I was going to have a look at the bathrooms. Exits, remember? Isn’t that why I’m here?” 

Rio squints a little at her, unimpressed. 

“Yeah, see from where I was standin’, it looked like you were headin’ out.” 

“I was coming back.” 

“Oh is that right? With or without your new friend?” 

The words are enough to make Beth pause, to stare Rio down in front of her, spotting the tetchy energy of him and the hard set to his sharp jaw, and it’s ridiculous, she thinks. David had left almost ten minutes ago – had gotten a phone call from his babysitter that had him grumbling down the line and ordering an Uber, and Beth had been relieved more than anything at the prospect, sliding off her barstool and offering to walk him out (mostly just to be sure he  _ did  _ actually leave – the last thing she needed was him popping back up later and Beth having to endure a lecture from Rio about seeing things through). 

He hadn’t let her though, so Beth had just had to watch as David disappeared through the crowd before popping out of the ballroom into the hotel foyer, his dark hair frazzled and his phone screen shining bright with the Uber tracking screen. It was only then that Beth had finished her drink, and after another excruciating few minutes of watching Rio dance with the woman in the golden dress (his hands sliding at one point from her hips to her ass in a way that had Beth wanting to throw her heavy bourbon glass), she’d decided to find a bathroom. 

But then - - she stares at Rio, takes in his dark, hooded eyes and the way his jaw rocks. 

It probably looked like she was leaving. 

No, she thinks. It looked like she was leaving with  _ David _ . 

She blinks rapidly, lips twitching up before she can help it, because he was - - 

(No, she thinks desperately, trying to stop the thought. Nothing good waits for her at the end of  _ that _ .) 

She lets her gaze settle back on Rio, a script re-writing itself in her head as she tries to think of the best way to leverage this, and for once, honesty actually seems like the most  _ fun _ .

“David had a family emergency, and has gone home,” she says slowly, watching as Rio sucks in his lips, and it feels so  _ good _ , something warm and smug sprawling in her chest, to see him realise he’s been caught out. “I was looking for a bathroom that didn’t have a hundred twenty-year-old’s in line for it.” 

Somewhere down the corridor, a woman laughs – the sound a little breathless as another voice, this time a man’s, slurs something hot and low. It’s only broken up by the sounds of a staff member breaking the couple up, pushing them out of the service corridor and back into the bustle of the ballroom. If he hears it, Rio doesn’t so much as blink, his gaze fixed down on Beth, his expression carefully, smoothly neutral, all the tension in his shoulders gone. 

“Cool.” 

The words cut through any of Beth’s own remaining prickliness at being grabbed then insulted, and she rolls her eyes, lips twitching, amused, something in her fluttering unsteadily when Rio’s own lips tug up, and if she didn’t know any better, she’d say he almost looked a little embarrassed which - - 

“C’mon,” he says, jerking his head sideways, and just like that, they’re off again, walking down the crowding corridor, taking in the dodge of darting waiters, and the drunken couples, giggling into each other’s shoulders, searching out dark corners. They side-step every one as Beth keeps her eyes trained on the length ahead of them, taking in every door – mapping the space in her head. 

Beside her, Rio pulls out his phone, firing off texts and making notes, even pausing once or twice to take a photo of a vent or – strangely – a light fixture, and Beth wouldn’t bother with it, but after a certain point - - 

Well. 

“Why do you need to case this place anyway?” she asks, and Rio shrugs beside her, the music from the ballroom sounding loud through the thin walls. 

“I’m meeting someone here next week.” 

“Who?”

He glances back at her with a raised eyebrow, like she should be grateful he’s even told her as much as he has, and Beth rolls her eyes, huffing out an annoyed breath.

“If it’s about the money, I should know about it,” she insists. “It’s my product.”

At her words, Rio suddenly stops dead in his tracks beside her, forcing Beth to slow her own and turn back around to face him. He waits until he has her full attention before he gestures back at himself with his cell phone. 

“Mine,” he says sharply. “My product.” 

Beth scowls, ready to tell him exactly how wrong he is about  _ that,  _ when Rio adds: 

“‘Sides, it’s not about that.” 

Not about that? Beth squints a little at him, confused. He hadn’t exactly given her the impression he was looking at flipping his game yet, but then again, she could never tell with him really. She’d known with the pills, but that was only because he’d practically shoved it in her face when he’d tried to move those cars through Boland Motors. It wasn’t like he’d suddenly started importing second hand hot tubs full of prescription pills to Boland Bubbles.

She bites her lip, watching as Rio twists a little, pushing his cell phone back into the pocket of his slacks and eyeing off the narrow corridor with a new interest. 

“How wide you think this is?” 

Beth blinks in surprise, looking at the walls either side of them.

“The passageway?” 

He nods, and Beth steps back a little, taking it in. 

“Three and a half feet? Maybe four?”

Humming in agreement, Rio seems to commit the measurement to memory, squinting a little in consideration. After a moment, he opens his mouth to say something else, but closes it when a waiter bustles past them.

Why would he need to ask how wide it is? She figured when he asked her to check for exits, he’d be looking for escape routes, not specifics. If he wants to know sizes though - - 

Beth jerks her head back to stare at him. 

“Are you going to be moving something down here?” she whispers, and he looks at her in a way that makes her think that that’s exactly what he’ll be doing. Her mind reels. “Some _ thing  _ or some _ one _ ?”

He huffs out something like a laugh only to stop when a door down the end of the corridor cracks open again, and a man walks out, only it’s not a waiter this time, it’s a - - well. Beth’s not sure what he is. If he’s a guest or a host or an organiser. He’s tall and slender, with a black velvet dinner jacket and a pair of polished black boots, his dark hair greying at the temples and a scar at his chin. 

“Shit,” Rio bites, the second he spots him, twisting back, away, so the guy can’t see his face, and Beth watches him, surprised by the sudden change in his demeanor. He knows him, Beth realises instantly. Worse than that, he doesn’t want this man to know that he’s been here. Rio’s eyes dart frantically around, and Beth sees it the moment he does – sees that there’s not really anywhere to hide. The next door out to the ballroom is closer to the other man than it is to them, and turning around now will only be even more obvious. 

Beth watches as Rio thinks, his mind ticking over, and right, Beth thinks, moving to angle herself just slightly in front of him, like she can conceal him behind her. Her gaze darts back to the other man, who’s on his phone now, murmuring something, and maybe she stares because Rio cusses again behind her. 

Suddenly, she’s jerked sideways, back landing hard enough against the wall of the corridor her breath briefly escapes her. Before she can even catch it again, Rio’s hovering over her, each of his big hands planted either side of her head. She blinks rapidly up at him, the warmth of his body suddenly too near, too  _ much, _ as Rio dips his face down low towards her. 

His gaze darts over her face, flicking between her eyes and her lips, and then he wets his, and she can’t help it, the way her thighs clench. 

“Just trust me, yeah?” 

And then he kisses her. 

It’s like the air’s been sucked from her lungs, that hot thread in her suddenly unspooling too quick, too rough for her to grab the end of. The weight of him against her, the press of his perfect lips against hers, she just - - 

_ Melts _ . 

Before she can even think, she’s raising a hand to the back of his head, the other to his cheek, running her fingers through the bristle of his stubble. He bites her lip in reply, and it feels like permission - - no, like  _ invitation _ , and she presses her breasts into his chest, deepens the kiss as one of his own hands drops to her hips, pushing her back into the wall, but it’s not to break this touch, it’s to take control of it – to press his own hips hard against hers and hold her there. 

She can feel the line of his cock through his pants, and he grinds it against her mound, trying to slip a leg between her own legs but her dress is too tight, doesn’t give him the freedom too, and it makes him growl into her mouth in a way that goes straight through her. 

She breaks the kiss, just enough to suck in a breath, and Rio chases her back, brushing his nose against hers before he dips in again, licking into her mouth. He palms at her thigh, at her hip, just around the curve of her ass, before he clenches his hand into a fist, bunching her dress up enough that he can finally push his thigh between her legs, and he’s getting hard now and she can  _ feel  _ it, and it’s electric, how quick the arrow of need in her shoots low. 

The memory isn’t enough. She wants him inside of her, wants the stretch of his teasing fingers and the fullness of his cock, wants it so badly she can feel herself  _ drip  _ for him, and that’s not right, not after everything that’s happened, this is - - they are - - 

She needs this to  _ stop _ . 

She pulls her lips back from his, twisting her neck against the wall, gasping when Rio sees it as an invitation to latch on there, mouth instantly sucking a hickey into her neck. 

Trembling, she grabs at the back of his head again, searching out the corridor, and finding it empty. 

“I think he’s gone,” Beth pants, breathless, blinking hard, and the words are enough to pause Rio’s lips. Still, it takes him a second, two, to pull back. To remember himself, and when he does, he stares down at her, a look she can’t read, twisting on his face, and then just like that, he’s off her. 

The cool of the hallway is almost a relief, Beth thinks, swallowing thickly as she tugs her dress back down over her thighs, willing them not to tremble. Her gaze flicks sideways to catch Rio adjusting himself, 

She clears her throat, pushing off the wall. 

“Who was that?” she asks, her voice still a little small, and he looks over at her then, his forehead furrowed, and that’s too much too, the way his eyes drop to her lips, then to her chest, then - -  _ lower _ . Heat floods her again, and she wills the colour out of her cheeks when Rio jerks his head to the door that the other man had just come out of. It’s a cleaning closet, she realises, and Rio strides towards it, Beth hurrying to follow, then slipping inside behind him. 

Instantly, the smell of cleaning chemicals fills her nose – the acidic burn of it enough to startle her, to fill her senses. The room itself is only small – barely broader than the width of the corridor outside of it, but it’s deeper. Steel shelves line the walls, loaded with floor and surface cleaner, disinfectant, mop heads, and saline. There’s a small first aid kit in the corner, and it’s instant – the way Rio gravitates towards all of it, rifling through the contents, looking for what, Beth can’t be sure. 

For a moment, she just watches him. Watches the methodical way he searches the place, his large hands patting and squeezing and shifting, and she swallows thickly, stepping deeper into the room behind him. She doesn’t crowd him, at least, she tries not to, but there’s nothing to do but watch him now, or start looking for something she doesn’t know. And well - - if that doesn’t just beg the question. 

She wets her lips and tastes him on them. 

“Why’d you bring me to this thing?” 

The words escape her before she can even really process them, and Rio doesn’t so much as slow his ministrations, his paced and plotted search. 

“Couldn’t exactly bring Mick,” he drawls, opening up a small box full of rubber gloves. He scrambles his fingers through them, before suddenly flicking his gaze back to her. “Two left feet, y’know? ‘Sides, you’re my girl, aren’t you?”

Her eyes widen, something in her chest stuttering, and the thing is, she knows what that gets her, knows what it  _ means _ . Remembers him saying it to her, before he tried to take her outside and kill her. Remembers him saying it to Lucy, before he - - 

She blinks. Hard. 

Something in her wobbles, wavers,  _ lurches _ . She flicks her gaze up to where Rio is still hovering over the box of rubber gloves now, only his hands are still this time, his palms half open. 

“I don’t know what to say to that anymore,” she tells him, and she means it, only Rio huffs out a laugh, turns around to face her, finally stopping in his search. He stares at her for a minute, his gaze dropping to her chest, but it’s not her breasts he’s looking at this time. It’s shoulder, lungs, spleen. Her breath catches, and Rio slowly shakes his head. 

“You don’t gotta say nothin’.”

His voice is low – hoarse and husky – and something in Beth stirs and is he wrong, she wonders? Feeling herself inch closer to him, ensnared by his look. There’s no one to interrupt them here, no one to perform for, and she blinks and she’s in the bathroom, and she blinks and she’s in her bedroom, and she blinks and she’s here, watching him, watching her. 

And then she kisses him. 

It’s not anything soft, not anything gentle. It’s the hard push of lips and the nip of both their teeth, his hands finding her ass and her hand fisting his tie and it’s a different sort of dance now, and Beth wants every part of it as Rio spins them, knocking her back into the shelves behind him. 

Beth gasps, and Rio grunts, yanking up her dress so much faster this time than he had in the hall, smacking her ass to hear her gasp again before he smooths a hand down over it, caressing his way up beneath the line of her panties and squeezing her bare ass cheek  _ hard _ . She keens, the hand not curled in his tie dropping down to cup his cock, rubbing him through his pants, and he’s as hard already as she is wet, the air between them blistering hot. 

It’s enough for him to pull back, his chest already heaving in anticipation, in feeling, in this, in  _ her _ , turning her around and shoving her forwards into the shelves. She reaches her hands out to steady herself, clutching awkwardly at a shelf as Rio presses himself behind her, pulling her panties down just below her ass, and god, she’s practically trembling with her own need, her cunt clenching around nothing, her eyes slipping shut when she hears the hoarseness of his breath in her ear and she wants him to touch her, but he doesn’t. Not yet. 

Instead, his fingers find the zipper on the back of her dress, thumbs up the teeth of it in a way that chases a shiver up her spine before he flicks at the slider, getting a grip on it and slowly, hotly, pulling it down to reveal her. It’s almost too much she thinks, the feel of it, the thought of it, of him just - -  _ opening  _ her up, savouring her like his favourite dish, and the air is cold but his hand is  _ hot  _ as he splays his palm on her newly exposed back. He caresses her skin before slipping two fingers up underneath her bra strap, dragging his blunt nails across the indent it’s left on her skin.

Something about it makes her clench, makes her own fingers grip the shelf a little tighter, and she feels it everywhere when he leans over and sinks his teeth into her shoulder, the fingers not entangled in her bra ghosting up between her legs. 

She should be embarrassed by how wet she is, but god, it feels too good. His fingers slipping easily between her folds, stroking a line over her cunt, coating them in her wetness, and she’s already keening when he slips a finger in. A breath ghosts over her shoulder, and he turns his bite into something like a kiss, his lips wet as he fucks her easily with his fingers, his other hand finally undoing the strap of her bra and curving down beneath her to her breast, shoving the cup up enough he can palm at it, and Beth groans – guttural – at the feel of his skin on hers.

Pulling his fingers out, he wipes them on her ass cheek, smacking it a little in the process, startling her, and pushing her forwards into the hand on her breast which - - right, Beth thinks. She turns around as much as he’ll let her, to glower at his dark, warm look, but then she hears the sound of his own zipper lowering and the head of his cock is pressing against her naked cunt. 

She swallows thickly, cants her hips back at him, but he just rubs the head of it there for a bit, coating himself in her slickness while he twists her nipple. And it’s good, it  _ is _ , but it’s not what she needs. 

Not what she’s sure he needs either. She tries to rub against him harder, and when he only shifts to accommodate her, Beth grumbles, twisting to look at him over her shoulder. 

“Are you seriously - - ”

He pushes into her in one long, slow stroke. 

Beth groans, her head falling forwards, and Rio laughs behind her as he starts to fuck her, slow and deep and then hard and fast, the shifting pace like something she’s never known. She grabs the shelves a little harder, vaguely aware of bottles and boxes falling from it, but she can’t bring herself to care. Not when this feels so good, so  _ right _ . She tries to widen her legs, but her panties are still locked around her thighs, awkward now, twisting up there, and she can’t push back against him easily, even as the hand on her hip pulls her back onto him. 

She swears, and then it’s Rio who groans, and somewhere outside of here is a fancy party and a job and a life and a husband and a - -  _ Rhea  _ \- - and a million betrayals, but none of it seems to matter when he’s between her legs. She  _ throbs  _ for him, and it’s too much and it’s never enough and his hand twists around her, finding her clit, making her moan, and her own hand twists behind her, finding his head, tugging him into her neck, and she trembles when he lets her, when he doesn’t suck hickies like she was expecting but instead gently, tenderly kisses her there, and it’s not right it’s not right it’s not right. 

(It’s perfect it’s perfect it’s perfect). 

Her fingers drift over the shell of his ear, and his hips stutter, his fingers press, and well. 

Then they’re both done. 

It takes a minute, but Beth blinks her eyes back open, her eyelashes wet, still riding the aftershocks of her orgasm, her fingers twisting at Rio’s ear over her shoulder, his lips nipping kisses still at her neck. 

Vaguely, she’s aware of the mess around them both, the sprawling damage to this little room, but isn’t that just them, she thinks a little dreamily. A badly kept secret. A desperate mess.

He plants one last kiss to her shoulder and pulls out of her, giving her breast one last squeeze in the process before he backs off, leaving her to fix her bra and tug up her panties. He doesn’t give her the chance to zip herself up though, his big, unfairly gentle hands doing it for her after he’s fixed his pants. 

Beth swallows thickly, blinking rapidly as she turns around, already aching with the memory of him, with the reality of this, with - - just - -  _ all  _ of it, and what she’s expecting, she doesn’t know, but it’s not for Rio to be dipping his fingers back into the box of rubber gloves, squirreling out a small flash drive and slipping it into his pocket, and - - 

Right. 

She huffs out a breath. 

Of course he’d already found what he was looking for, before they - - 

Rio catches her look, smiles a little, shrugs, and Beth rolls her eyes at him, smoothing her hands over her dress. She clears her throat, gesturing for the door, and says: 

“We should go back - -”

Out there? To  _ work _ ?

God, it all seems so trivial now, so  _ silly _ . But then - - it’s what they  _ are _ , isn’t it? 

Is this a part of it? A million things flash through her head – stories Annie’s told her of hooking up with co-workers (god, with  _ Noah _ ), of shows they’ve watched, of her just - - not  _ knowing _ , her experience so limited, but just - - nothing with Rio ever feels  _ light _ , never feels coincidental, or inconsequential. 

As if on cue, Beth  _ drips  _ \- - or, no - - Rio drips  _ out  _ of her, wetting her already damp panties, and Beth’s eyes flutter shut, her throat bobbing, because god, this - - 

“Think you can map it yet?”

She blinks, getting an eyeful of Rio as he starts towards the door. 

“What?”

His fingers settle on the handle and he tilts his head, gesturing out to the wide world beyond it, his eyes bright as he watches her, still frozen, pressed back against the shelves he’d just fucked her into. She nods, because she’s sure she can, and Rio hums, nodding himself. 

He looks at her again, somehow new, somehow  _ fresh _ , and Rio sucks in his lips.

“You drive?”

Something above Beth rolls. 

A bottle of chemicals, the heavy plastic hitting the wall, and then her foot goes out and hits another, and god, it almost feels symbolic. The wreckage they leave behind them, what  _ moves _ , always, when they’re together. She swallows thickly, finally pushing off the shelves behind her. 

She shrugs. 

“Caught a Lyft.”

Rio seems to consider this, his hand not leaving the doorknob, and he tilts his head, side to side. His lips are swollen.

God.

His lips are swollen from  _ kissing  _ her. 

“Sounds like you need a ride home.”

The words are drawled out into the space between them, and Beth stares at him, her eyes wide, and maybe Dean’s at home, maybe her children are, but also - - also maybe she’s not quite willing to let this go yet. She swallows. 

“I guess I do.”

And Rio? Rio just smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> [Title from The Cat Empire song, 'Two Shoes'. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRUyRuouppw)


End file.
